In eastern Ukraine, Russian special services are relying on security forces that are still directly controlled by the former government of the country, says Yuriy Lutsenko, the former minister of internal affairs of Ukraine and leader of the “Third Ukrainian Republic” party. Lutsenko shared his views on Channel 5 on Sunday, April 13.

“Since 2010, the entire leadership of the regional police departments and their deputies were personally coordinated by Yanukovych’s eldest son, who gave them assignments and paid them with envelopes stuffed with cash,” Lutsenko says. “In the Donetsk, Kharkiv, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts he did this even with the deputy heads of the district departments. Therefore, the entire leadership in this region depends on the Mezhyhirya mafia. They received and continue to receive payments in envelopes. Right now these payments have multiplied,” he says.

Lutsenko listed the names of the persons coordinating the activities of the separatists in the East: Yanukovych, the former chief of police in Donbas Romanov, and the former deputy interior minister Dubovyk.

“Behind all the separatist activity stand the puppet masters of the Russian Special Services and the money of Yanukovych as well as the former police chief of Donbas Romanov and the former deputy minister Dubovyk. These three people are coordinating the separatist activities in the East,” Lutsenko explained.

Lutsenko pointed out that a full-scale plan of destabilization is unfolding in Ukraine, to be followed by the separation of the eastern regions from the country.

“It is being manipulated by Russian special services, which are centered — and this is no longer secret — in Luhansk and Severodonetsk,” he concluded.

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